P:NW "The Sound of Thunder, Pt 2" Feb 19

So, let us talk about “The Sound of Thunder, Part 2”. This episode has introduced new plot developments to the show, so let us talk about them first.

As it was said on P:NW’s Facebook page, the finale’s name was derived from Ray Bradbury’s short story with the same name, where a time traveling hunter, after stepping onto a butterfly, changed the entire history – for the worse. Since then, this idea has been used at least once, in 2005, in a film vaguely based on the same concept, and also in 2007, at the end of the first season of original “Primeval”. This concept states that messing with the past is always bad and should not be used.

Unfortunately, the delivery of this idea by the P:NW somehow fell somewhat short; in fact, the entire conveyance of “The Sound of Thunder Part 2” fell short. Two weeks ago, in “The Inquisition”, the actors took Jon Cooksey’s script and managed to ham it up, especially Sara Canning (Dylan Weir); here, they went the other way, and not just them, but Gillian Horvath and Katherine Collins (the scriptwriters) as well.

Messing with the time, i.e. with the past, is bad and leads to untold or unimaginable problems? Perhaps, but somehow the actual reasons delivered by Evan and Connor were less grandiose and more personal: Connor just wants to get back to his wife (Abby, I hope) and not lose her, Evan just does not want to die and disappear up the Albertosaurus’ gut; project Magnet may be able to save the people killed by the dinosaurs and co. from the pilot episode onwards, but Evan would not be around...

No, I am not saying that Evan should have died – he is the main character of the show, but frankly his line of reasoning was weak, especially since he failed to save a lot of people, starting with his friend Drake in the pilot, ending with Mac in the season finale, and over a dozen people in-between, that is all.

On the other hand, he does kill the Albertosaurus, after it apparently killed his wife and Mac (again) and that changes something in the time line...thus nullifying all of the song and dance that was done to ensure that the dinosaur does go back in time and kills all of the right people. That, in turn, makes all of the episode’s lines about the non-violation of the past seem not even hypocritical, but pointless. (And considering that ever since “The Inquisition” Evan’s team was worried that Hall’s people were going to change the past, this is also dramatically ironic, in a moronic way, though.)

As for the other characters, well, Connor got married. Congratulations. I am sure that he and Abby are going to be even happier together now that they got together at last, but... he knew that Evan and the other Canucks were either messing with the time travel technology or had problems with time anomalies of their own and just went back to England and did nothing? What the f*ck was he thinking – the ARC job is to constraint the time anomalies and ensure that the time anomaly situation doesn’t get out of hand, so to ignore the situation in Canada is nothing short of criminal. Both Connor and Lester should be sacked for letting it get that intense and not contacting either Evan’s team or project Magnet to establish damage control. This is criminal negligence, period, and Connor really should not have been so smug, when he told Ange that it was he, who introduced Evan to this whole thou shall not kill prehistoric animals’ philosophy – he was lucky that Evan is an easily influenced guy.

No, seriously, Evan is. He accepted Connor’s policy about the dinosaurs after one brief talk with him, he accepted Dylan’s Greenpeace-like opinion without an argument, and I honestly do not know why he was able to resist colonel Hall so well. Maybe because the good colonel challenged Evan’s alpha male status? I have no idea...

Speaking of males, Leeds’ character has developed little in this episode: he was shown as a take charge and an intelligent man (maybe that is why Evan had problems with him since the beginning), while Toby is actually alive. Yay for Toby, she really had us worried.

But Mac is dead. Boo. And he had not told Evan about any of his and Toby’s ARC related discoveries or about his conversation with Connor (really bland and pointless, if you ask me). I seriously hope that Toby will fill the blanks for Evan and the others, or this plot thread will a) bite them all in the ass; or b) vanish completely, making the audience wonder why was it so important that Mac worked in the ARC in the original timeline.

As for character development – well, Mac clearly was a tragic hero of this season: nothing, not even Toby, appeared to be going his way ever since Samantha died in “Undone”, just as he was about to take things with her to a new level, plus he already had to help his friends to bury himself. I seriously hope that he will not be forgotten in the next season or so, as captain Ryan, Nick and Stephen had been in the original series, eh?

Toby, incidentally, has changed little in this episode, and neither has Ange. Maybe she has done the right thing, by having Connor and his friend (Kieran, was it?) go back to London via the time anomaly express, but for all that we know, this could have been rendered pointless by Evan killing the dinosaur, so I honestly cannot say that either, she, Leeds, Toby or Dylan have changed much. Dylan, in particular, did little other than demonstrate her field experience and her fiery temper; and also she had saved Leeds from the Albertosaurus – this will probably be important in the next season of P:NW (if there will be one).

So: Evan had his reckoning, Connor became thoroughly OOC, Mac is dead, Toby is not and the other characters have remained as they were. Plus the season ended on an open note. A fitting end for the first season of a show that had plenty of both ups and downs.

P:NW "The Sound of Thunder Pt 1" Feb 12

Last night's episode of P:NW was interesting, but, as far as tension goes, nowhere as intense as last week's "The Inquisition" was. Such is the power a screen writer: the trio who are writing the script for the season's finale are nowhere as hyped-up about Greenpeace as Jon Cooksey was, and as a result the script for "TSOP1" is much more coherent than the last week's episode was.

What has happened in "TSOP1"? A classic hero quest, that's what. King Polydeuces (in canon) sent Perseus for the head of Medusa; Perseus slayed the monster and then returned back home and kicked the king's butt. That's a classic quest, and that is what this episode of P:NW is about, with some variations.

The biggest variation, of course, is the reason behind the quest: Toby got stung. This isn't unlike what has happened in "Primeval" episode 1x02 (2007), when Stephen Hart got bitten by an arthropleura, and captain Ryan, Nick and Connor had to go and capture the giant invertebrate to retrieve some of its venom for the antidote. Even earlier, in "Prehistoric Park" (2006), Nigel Marvin got stung by a Pulmonoscorpius and was just fine, because there were no mammals in the Carboniferous epoch and the scorpions of that time didn't have the right sort of venom to affect mammals, such as humans. In canon, the scorpion in "TSOP1" is supposed to be a Brontoscorpio, an arthropod from an even earlier time period, the Silurian (first shown in "Walking with Monsters" [2005]), only it's not. Rather, it is a scorpion that appeared in "Clash of the Titans", when Medusa's blood was spilled onto the ground - that's the only way this creature could've appeared: it is just as unrealistic as the so-called Jurassic beetles from "Fear of Flying", so there is no real reason for listing its flaws, for it is just one big flaw, period.

Instead, let's talk about character development in "TSOP1". Ange has decided to stay and join colonel Hall's project Magnet as the civilian liaison. The script writers were probably thinking of Claudia Brown (or Christine Johnson?) when they were designing this plot twist, and on screen Ange found herself as Lt. Leeds co-worker, being in charge of a large group of people once again. I must admit that this role suits her very well - she must've been the goddess Ishtar in her previous life. More precisely, think Aphrodite, but with a generous dollop of Hera: Ange isn't afraid of making her hands dirty, even if she rather would not, as her upcoming call to colonel Hall about the 'spaghetti junction' seems to indicate: she isn't happy about this, but she's got to do what she's got to do, period.

As for Lt. Leeds, he really must think fast if he's to talk Ange out of this action. Why's he's to talk her out of this? Because otherwise this will burn any hope of him co-operating and befriending Evan Cross for good. Of course, there's also the question as to why Lt. Leeds would want to befriend Evan Cross in the first place, or even own him loyalty: ever since their first interactions, Evan was curt and unfriendly to Kenneth, clearly not a good friend material. And Lt. Leeds is interested in befriending Team Evan for some reason that goes beyond the time anomaly detection devices, so I would really love to know why.

For Ange, though, there is no choice. She has had it with Evan and his maverick approach to time anomalies and the creatures that come through them, so she's on Team Hall from now on. Considering that P:NW S1 is in the home stretch, this situation is unlikely to change, but P:NW has made plot twists its M.O., so who knows?

Speaking of plot twists and Ange, she is really doing her best to be a good friend to Toby and Mac...well, mostly for Toby. Yes, Ange is fishing for advantage for her new boss, but she also believes that she is doing the right thing, and she wants Toby to do the right thing too. When Mac confronts Ange outside of the hospital room, claiming that Toby is already full of venom, Ange promptly fires back, claiming that she had it with Evan and that he shall not cause another person to die on her watch. The battle lines have already been drawn, and Ange and Mac are staring right across them, while Toby's life hangs in the balance.

That said, Mac, for all of him being an Evan patriot, still hadn't told Evan about his and Toby's discovery about the ARC - the Anomaly Research Center in Britain (a.k.a. the original show). I wonder if this makes P:NW apocrypha - at the end of "Primeval S5", there were dinosaurs and mammoths in London streets, there's no way that Lester's people would have been able to cover it up, even if there wasn't also Burton's "New Dawn" to deal with as well. But that's besides the point.

The point itself is that the members of team Evan are starting to keep secrets from each other, and that's bad. The more secrets there are, the greater is the number of the fractions that a team can break-up into, and team Evan is already down to four, 'cause Leeds is still a member of project Magnet than otherwise.

(As an aside I should add that whoever did Crystal Lowe's/Toby's make-up in this episode did an awesome job, very realistic. Of course, Crystal's own acting had contributed a lot to the realism too.)

Speaking of Evan, he has at last arrived to ship Devan, when he didn't change his past and saved Brooke from getting eaten by the Albertosaurus from the earlier eps - instead he went to save Dylan from getting munched by the mythical scorpion in the land that time forgot. Consequently, he saved her and got the scorpion's venom - pity that that pesky rock slide trapped him on the wrong side of the cave with the scorpion. Not to worry, though: a scorpion's stinger is a part of its abdomen, so by cutting that off Evan did an action that was akin to cutting-out a large part of his own stomach and belly, an action that will result in the death of the victim very quickly.

But what of the character development of Evan and Dylan in general? Compared to the last week's episode there wasn't much of it at all: clearly Evan and Dylan have arrived where they need to be character-wise at the moment, and here they are going to stay. Plot-wise, though, Dylan has to leave Evan to bring back the scorpion's stinger and the venom sack back to the present, before entropy sets-in and all of their time travelling was in vain.

And yet, the season's finale is named fully after the famous story of Ray Bradbury, where a death of a prehistoric butterfly did cause the present to change, quite a bit. Maybe Toby is supposed to die (or maybe just lose her leg) and all of the heroic deeds by Evan and Dylan were pointless. (They had failed to save many people already.) Only next week will tell.

So: serious personality development of Ange, some development of Leeds and the ship of Moby, and a lot of actions. Plus Connor Temple is going to make another guest appearance next week. This is going to be a big one, I'm sure: let's wait and see!

Primeval New World 'The Inquisition' Feb 5

There is an old proverb that says that best is the enemy of the good. Last night's episode of P:NW has shown this very clearly, for the script writer Jon Cooksey apparently had gotten too perfectionist or ambitious and wrote a very peculiar script for the episode, but first - a relatively brief run through the characters, old and new.

Lt. Leeds, of course, was one of the main stars of this episode as he had made his choice fully in favor of Cross. This must signify his new redemption story arc as he tries to make up for what he did in the past (led military teams into the time anomalies and captured creatures for study and dissection). Simple enough. Also, this episode reveals that despite his occasional stutter and Star Trek fanboy mode, Leeds can be as canny and self-controlling as any, such as colonel Hall, the season's chief human villain (it seems). Admittedly, this sight of the good lieutenant has been hinted at, for example in the "Clean-Up on Aisle 3", but now it was revealed fully. It will be interesting to watch further developments of Leeds' character, if the good man is given any more screen time.

Ange, of course, has returned, and she is on colonel Hall's side rather than Evan's. Maybe her running into Lt. Leeds in the hall, as he is being sent back to his cell will give her a change of heart but honestly? The episode's script has made it ambiguous enough for Ange to have equal (50-50) chance both to go back to Evan's team in some new capacity or to make "The Inquisition" her swan song and to leave for good (especially since there are only 2 episodes left till the finale). Guess only next week will show. (That said, Miranda Frigon must've made some sort of a contract regarding her legs: even in "The Inquisition" there was a shot centered on them. Yeesh!)

Toby, sadly, wasn't in this episode - well, she was, but only at the very beginning and end, so let us turn to the other half of the good ship Moby - Mac. He has also returned and apparently "stopped sulking" as Dylan put it, but Dylan has her own issues so let's not underestimate Mac. In "The Inquisition" Mac has become a foil to Dylan, being something of the voice of reason to her emotions so we have to respect and appreciate Evan's firearms expert for that. Other than that Mac's main contribution was to tell Dylan and the audience that everything related to the ARC has been removed from the Internet. Personally, in this day and age, I find this unlikely, but technology aside, I honestly hope that Connor will be able to explain this situation to the Cross Photonics gang when they return: what did happen to the original ARC and is P:NW actually canon or not?

Dylan. Ever since "Breakthrough" she was one of my least favorite characters of P:NW; no offense to Sara Canning, but since when did Dylan became so Greenpeace? Let's not forget that Evan got involved with the time anomalies to protect innocent people such as his late wife from the dinosaurs, not vice versa. Evan's silence on this subject ever since "The Great Escape" (considering that Leggy that terror bird got shot dead during maybe "The Epic Fail" would've been a better title from his point of view as the escapee) is less peculiar: he had already lost several people from his team, even if he wasn't falling in love with Dylan, he cannot afford to alienate her without a good reason. That said, he is still in charge of his team, not Dylan, so either he and Ms. Weir must have a confrontation about their goals and have a good heart-to-heart talk about everything short of the moon, or Evan should resign and make Dylan the full and rightful leader of the team instead.

The second big problem with Dylan is Sara Canning, or more precisely - her acting. In this episode, Sara hammed it up. Certainly, "The Inquisition" was supposed to be a very tense, very dramatic episode, but Sara went at it as if she was a character in an ancient Greek tragedy, like Medea or Antigone, for example. There are various ways to execute this sort of character, and Sara had failed at it almost as badly as Leggy the terror bird did with his escape. I wouldn't say that Sara came across as a third-rate diva in a second-rate TV series, but it could have gone a lot better.

If Dylan has turned into Antigone - all emotion and rightful fury, then the CP team's new nemesis, colonel Hall, is king Creont - all logic and domination and the same unyielding character. His master plan is to raid the past in order to save the humanity's future, a clear nod towards Earth's future in the original series. Evan and the others (primarily Mac and Dylan) see this as good intentions that lead to Hell, but did Evan really sell his company? For if he did, he not only had destroyed his own power base, but also, possibly, betrayed the expectations of many people who were loyal to him - hardly heroic at all.

This brings uns to the main problem that plagued 'The Inquisition' - the episode's script. The actors did their jobs very well, even Sara, who hammed it up somewhat, but the script itself was flawed, and in several ways. Firstly, it's the shifts in Evan and Dylan's characters - too large and drastic for the audience to believe in, as I mentioned above.

Secondly, it's the lack of the actual dinosaurs & co. and the time anomalies in this episode. "Primeval" was all about them, basically, and if P:NW is moving away from them, it is also moving away from being a spin-off of the original and into the realm of independence. If that's the case, some sort of a press release would've been nice, thank you.

Thirdly, it's the multiple flashbacks to the previous episodes - the pilot, "Babes in the Woods", "Truth". Even if the audience is incapable of uploading those episodes from YouTube or wherever, there is still no reason to assume that they have short-term memory of a gnat and are incapable of remembering which episode stared Ange's first meeting with Leeds, which episode had the Ornithomimus, and which episode - the Pachycephalosaurus. The flashbacks were supposed to intensify the drama, I reckon, but instead they just made "The Inquisition's" script fragmented and hard to follow. Combine this with Dylan's/Sara's over-the-top acting, and instead of feeling horrified or sympathetic you begin to feel annoyed and start hoping for the latest dinosaur or other prehistoric animal to come through a time anomaly to break things up.

And there were no dinosaurs or other creatures in "The Inquisition" either. Instead we had several long talks about the sanctity of life and of humanity's place in it. I cannot say that I'm fully surprised by this - P:NW may be a Canadian show, but IP who made it is a British company, and lately England has been very involved with wildlife conservation efforts - just ask Sir David Attenborough. That said, a sci-fi TV series isn't the best place to introduce such topics to the wider audience: another TV series, "Terra Nova", made in the States but based on an idea of a British writer, tried this, and got cancelled after a single season; I honestly hope that P:NW will not.

And there you have it, folks. "The Inquisition", the episode where P:NW appears to be on the verge of transforming from a spin-off into an independent series, where most of the main cast got captured by a villain whose hideout, for all of its high tec, lacked simple security cameras to track Mac and Dylan, and where Jon Cooksey's ambitions to write a very good, very serious episode backfired on him and the audience...at least partly. What will happen next week? Only time will tell.

Primeval New World 'The Great Escape' Jan 29

And so, P:NW has recovered from its' hiatus slump by bringing us the latest great episode, "The Great Escape", pun intended. If one discounts some minor issues associated with Titanis (more on that below), "The Great Escape" truly great.

First, the conflicts. Evan still hasn't made it up with Ange or Mac. While the situation with Ange is confusing and tense and Evan probably doesn't know how to solve it, honestly, the situation with Mac can probably be resolved with a single heart-to-heart, so if Evan isn't in touch with his feminine side enough to do that, then maybe Dylan has to pick up the slack: Cross Photonics' dinosaur-hunting team is getting ridiculously understaffed.

That is where the military comes in. As it was revealed back in the episode "Angry Birds", Lt. Leeds has sort of doublecrossed the Cross Photonics team by keeping one at the end of the ep, rather than sending it back home, to the Miocene or Pliocene time period. Now, however, it appears that his own superiors have doublecrossed Leeds and cut him out of the loop (see the previous episode for some more of that), and Leeds isn't taking it lying down, as he saves the day at the end of the episode, or at least Evan and Dylan from being captured by the military in the character of major Douglas.

It should be pointed out at this moment that one of the improvements that P:NW has done in comparison to the original series is that it got rid of the rather 2D secondary characters of original "Primeval". Major Douglas isn't a cardboard character akin to captain Wilder from S3 of "Primeval" - instead, he appears to be a decent and a competent military man, who honestly wants to do the right thing - but is willing to do anything to achieve it, no matter what the cost is. This puts him, of course, on a collision course with Leeds, who also wants to do the right thing, but who is always aware of the cost and who just is not as ruthless as his superior officer is. (Determination now Leeds got plenty.)

Right now, of couse, the score is tied: Leeds was captured, but Dylan and Evan got away and the poor Titanis shall not be experimented on live every again - the resolution of this conflict will probably become apparent in the next episodes: there are just three left, so a lot of resolutions are waiting in the wings.

While Lt. Leeds character development dominated the ep, Evan and Dylan continued to bond too. I really do approve of ship Devan, but Evan's MS skills are ridiculous: in "Fear of Flying" he was almost able to rig a plane to fly again, and here he is able to hijack military radio equipment using some rather impromptu tools. Yes, of course, the Thunderdome is the Thunderdome, but still...

That said, both Dylan and Evan had some nice interactions with each other, as they tried to figure where each other's attitudes lie in relation to each other: Evan's save all humans vs. Dylan's animal loving, and it's nice to see Evan getting along with at least one of the women in his life at this point.

Finally, it should be noted that the way "The Great Escape" referred to the previous episodes of the season is clever, giving the audience ample hints as to what this episode will be about - Leggy the Titanis, "Terror Bird", which already appeared in this season.

Sadly, here we come to some of the minor issues of the episode. Firstly, the model for the terror bird has changed again, this time to that used in the episode 4x06 of the original series. Clearly, when it comes to the terror birds, IP has just too many options: WWB (2001), "Prehistoric Park" (2006), "Primeval" (2007-11) and now P:NW (2012-13) each had its own model of the terror bird, so by now the show's producers probably have too many to pick and choose from, and that's what has happened to Leggy here.

To make things even more messed up, the scientific team at IP is not very good with terror birds themselves: not too long ago they thought that Titanis and Phororhacos were one and the same bird. They are not, and now the episode's script writers took to calling it a "dinosaur". Seriously, WTF? Yes, a bird is a dinosaur, but it is also a bird. A terror bird and a stegosaurus, for example, were two different creatures even if they both laid eggs. And it is not like 'a bird' is a mouthful or an obscure scientific term as 'a mammal-like reptile' or 'a therapsid' are, so what gives?

That said, "The Great Escape" was still a very good episode: the plot was tight, the action - also, and Lt. Leeds finally got his long expected character development, so kudos for that. Cannot wait and see what the next week's ep brings us.

Primeval New World 'Breakthrough' Jan 22

And P: NW is back, vigorously, only not so much. With just four (not counting this episode) eps left until the season’s finale, “Breakthrough” has more in common with the pilot episode, rather than the others.

Let us elaborate. The pilot episode of P: NW was a good episode, but it suffered from a jerky, uneven script. “Breakthrough” suffers from the same malaise, though perhaps it is elaborate, for the old team has been broken in the previous episode (“Truth”). The fallout of Evan’s little breakdown is felt even now, for Ange is missing, and Mac is undecided and has an existentialist crisis: how can he be both alive and dead at the same time? Personally, I think that he should unfreeze his dead self and touch it, to see what would happen, but that is not likely to happen.

To make matters worse, as they are hunting for the dinosaur, Evan and Dylan have to content with Evan’s old rival, sheriff Carter from Eureka...I mean Colin Fergusson...I mean Howard Kanan...sorry about that. Eureka was a great show, pity that it ended (albeit on a hook). Anyways, Howard is not only the black sheep of the Carter family, he’s also Sheldon Cooper from “Big Bang Theory”, though older, and without his loyal Leonard to keep himself grounded, after Evan surpassed him in the photonics technology field. Oh well, Sheldon never liked being upstaged by Leonard or anyone else either.

Unlike Sheldon, however, Howard has went one step further and pulled a Helen, by actually going through a time anomaly with a time detector that he had made, admittedly, but still... Considering that before that he lived a hermit in his mansion and now will have to fare for himself in the Cretaceous, dealing not just with tyrannosaurs, but also with the K-T extinction, it is an open question as to whether or not he will make it there or have a nervous breakdown and die. Still, Howard did provide a foil and a personal opponent to Evan Cross, so I’m grateful to him even for that and hope that he will return in a later episode or season (also because those one-episode guest stars are getting annoying). 

Even if Howard does not return, he already has done a lot: Evan has finally started to think about his personal future and whether or not his anti-dinosaur quest is beginning to cost him too much: it already cost him Ange and Evan is naturally reluctant to bring a stranger into the fold into a CFO position as well, while his secret project is fully underway. Cross Photonics is not yet Stark Industries, it seems.

Dylan, meanwhile, tries to make Evan feel better by claiming that he and the rest of his team (herself included) are making the world a better place, by not killing the prehistoric animals but returning them to the past. Sadly, there are problems with her speech.

First, Dylan rambles. It may have been intentional to the plot, but also rather incoherent: a speech about protecting her family’s sheep with barbed wire, but wolves were still caught in it... wha? Evan came into this gig solely to avenge his wife and to prevent anyone else being killed by a dinosaur or any other prehistoric animal, remember? Considering that several times by now he and his team have failed, where and how does the sanctity of life came to playing a role in this?

Mind you, it is a good thing that Evan did not say anything to Dylan about this: the last thing he needs to do is to antagonize another member of his team, with Ange already gone and Mac on the ropes. But honestly? Dylan is rapidly becoming one of my least favorite characters of the show, sadly. Her latest bon mot claiming that as an herbivore the Triceratops is harmless is just adding insult to injury: think rhinoceros, which is one of the world’s deadliest animals; or if the rhinoceros too foreign for Canada, think a moose cow, protecting its calf from any threat, real or supposed, with hooves the size of dining plate and really sharp, eh? But since Dylan, as part of her Predator Control training, usually had to deal with carnivores, she had probably forgotten about this...

The flowers for the Triceratops are really just adding insult to injury: while flowering plants were becoming widespread at the end of the Cretaceous, when this dinosaur did live, they were still nowhere as prominent as in the modern times, so I doubt that the horned dinosaur would have eaten them on a regular basis. But that’s just Dylan for you, and the soldiers picking flowers from various front yards were just an attempt at humor in the current episode, I reckon.

While Dylan had to deal with the military in person of Ken Leeds, Toby also had to deal with the military – in person of his secretary. That woman could be either purposefully obstructive or just obtuse, but either way, she has become a communication obstacle between Leeds and the CP team that Toby will have to deal with in the future. 

Of course, this raises a question as to why would the military initiate a conflict with Evan and CP – so far Evan was relatively co-operative with Leeds and doesn’t appear to hold a particularly anti-military stance, but Leeds’ superior, the unknown and unseen colonel, has taken a dislike to Evan all the same, and Leeds is getting caught in the middle...

Finally, Mac came back to help Toby ‘put the dinosaur back in the box’, quote unquote, so that is good. It is also nice to see him and Toby getting along, since means that the team Moby is progressing smoothly (as does team Devan, but lately I am starting to dislike Dylan a lot, as I said above). The only thing that I feel commenting about is Mac’s disappearance act at the end of the episode: military training or not, how did he vanish in the blink of an eye? Did Helen Cutter give him sneaking lessons or something?

Other than that, however, the Toby-Mac interaction was the smoothest part of “Breakthrough”, anything else was reminiscent of the scene where Dylan is observing the Triceratops with no other person in sight, and suddenly there’s a banging sound, rather like a gunshot, and there’s still no action, no reaction from either Dylan or the dinosaur. Otherwise the scene is great, but that strange sound ruins everything and makes it disjointed.

So is the case with the bigger part of this episode: the dinosaur was excellently done, both in CGI and as a dummy, the music was appropriate to the end by further underlining the tension running throughout this episode, but the plot itself was just too disjointed, especially by the standards of the previous episodes and came short of being great.

Primeval New World 'Truth' Dec 17

Last night's episode had fully compensated for 'Babes' sexual innuendo and then some, not to mention that it had revealed a significant chunk of the show's back story, but let's try and get it in order.

Now, the episode began with the dinosaur Pachycephalosaurus, and though it is a very interesting dinosaur in its own right, its job was just to be an engine for Evan revealing the truth, bits and pieces of it at least, and it just as easily could've been some other animal, prehistoric or futuristic, so we'll talk about it later.

Evan, now, he was the star of this episode and its main problem. Apparently (there was a lull in the action) after the dinosaur had sneezed on him, Evan began to break mentally down: he began to hallucinate, to see the dinosaur that killed his wife (Albertasaurus, the smaller, faster cousin of the T-Rex), his younger and married self alongside with his wife, and also Mac v.2 - roughly in this sequence. Some of the hallucinations, primarily those of the dinosaur, were auditory rather than visionary, so whatever the Pachy had spat on him, it was some potent sh*t!!

Pachy aside, in the episode Evan, or rather Niall Matter, released his inner badass - very impressive acting, you can honestly believe Evan's deteriorating mental condition, as he goes into a quasi-robocop mode, intent on blowing the entire Cross Photonics in order to change the time line and to save Brooke from certain death. This kind of ruthlessness was probably demonstrated only by Helen Cutter, when she intended to prevent humanity from evolving in S3 of the original series. Incidentally, this only reinforces my theory that Helen spent the rest of her screen time after Stephen's death in S2 growing more and more unbalanced - but for her, it took 10 episodes and she was always ambiguous; for Evan, who's the main hero of P:NW, it took about half an hour of screen time: guess the idea about women being tougher (more resilient) than men has some truth in it!

Evan, to make things even more tense, intended to change the future (and to kill himself and the rest of his field team) to make the world a better place, so it was really fortunate that Ange and Dylan managed to stop him before that. Otherwise, things would've changed in the future, but for the worse (or not).

Dylan, now, had less of a personality development than Evan or the rest of the CP team, not counting Lt. Leeds. Then again, considering that this case of personality development has opened new rifts in the CP team as well as re-activated old ones, this may not be so bad: one of the episode's final scenes is Evan admitting to Dylan that on this day he and his secrets have pissed every one of his friends, not counting Dylan herself. Toby, Mac and Ange may or may not jump ship of dinosaur hunters after 'Truth', but Evan will have to make it up to them somehow. A lot. And personal skills, unlike technical, are Evan's weak spot, as such episodes like 'Angry Birds' and 'Babes' have shown, so he and the others will be in a dark place for a while.

And in Mac's case it'll be particularly dark. I'm guessing that in the original time line where he didn't die fighting the dinosaur or at least managed to get back through the time anomaly, he ended up in the British army rather in Cross Photonics, and may've eventually replaced captain Becker as the head of the original ARC's security detail, or at least became a part of it. In this time line, Evan Cross intervened and Mac came to Canada, BC, and became a firearms expert instead. This, of course, probably caused more ripples in the timeline, but in Mac's case, he's most likely experiencing a case of 'what-might've-been', where he became a British dinosaur hunter and got killed at approximately the same age that he currently is. (It's kind of dicey, given that the mannequin stand-in for Mac v.2 looks exactly like what it's supposed to be - a mannequin.)

And why am I thinking this? Because the end of the very first episode of P:NW had Evan stare at the frozen corpse of who we now know to be Mac v.2 - and his uniform had an ARC logo on it. But that is something that will probably be developed more (or gotten rid off altogether) in the next episodes of P:NW.

Anyways, Mac now knows that Evan knew him before they met, sort of, and Mac isn't the sort of man to deal with unpleasant surprises easily: for him (and for many other people) springing this sort of a surprise is a definite breach of trust, and unlike Toby, he may quit CP, though it's anyone's idea where he'll go from there.

Toby, of course, will be with Mac all the way, seeing how she has rescued him from the freezer room. She may be gay or bisexual or whatever, but she now clearly counts Mac as important and close enough to save from a certain death. For a woman who's not the most trigger-happy or outdoors-savvy (that's Dylan), she can certainly think and act fast, especially if there's Evan losing his marbles and packing serious heat in the same room.

Basically, like Dylan, Toby didn't develop too much if compared to Evan or Mac in this episode. In this instance, she's the lesser half of the ship 'Moby", just as Dylan's the lesser half of ship 'Dyvan', now that the ship 'Evange' has sunk - Ange told Dylan when the gas dispersed and Evan was out cold, that she's leaving CP again.

Then again, though, even at the beginning of the episode Ange didn't appear all that keen to have a 'ship with Evan, nor did she go with him, Dylan and Mac to capture the latest time-displaced animal - guess that the woodland outing in 'Babes' provided her with enough field experience to decide that she doesn't like it. That said, she was clearly hurt (emotionally, not physically) to realize that Evan still cared for Brooke more than for her; maybe not as sharply as Emma Frost, when she realized that Scott will love Jean, first and foremost, when Jean 'the Phoenix' Grey disappeared (due to various Marvel comics time lines let's leave it at that), but still. No woman really likes to hear that she has a more favored rival, and to Ange Brooke was that rival, maybe even when she was alive (what was the relationship between the two women? Maybe we'll learn in the next episodes, who knows?).

Of course, if Ange really does leave CP, does that mean that she'll go and work for Sung (or whoever) instead? More importantly, will she stay on the show? I think that yes, she will, but I also think that this issue - will or will not Ange remain working for CP as a CFO - should be resolved quickly, rather than drag it for the rest of the S1.

Finally, there's Lt. Leeds, and I have to admit that in his case, his character appears to be developing into a more secondary character than the rest of the cast: he probably has the least amount of screen time, right alongside Ange and Toby, but even Ange and Toby had more screen time than Ken Leeds recently, and I don't really like it. Unlike 'Fear of Flying', 'Truth' showed that Leeds can stand up to Evan, at least from time to time, and to get him out of trouble too, especially legal-wise, as this episode has shown. So, maybe the good RCAF lieutenant will have his day...

Finally, the dinosaur. Well, the dinosaurs, but Albertosaurus appeared here only in flashbacks and hallucinations, so let's talk about the Pachy instead. It's a neat dinosaur, not quite belonging to any established group, save for that of its own, the Pachycephalosauria. It has several species, but at least two of them, Stygimoloch and Dracorex (featured on the original series from S3 onwards) may be Pachy's juvenile specimens, and the same situation may be with other species of pachycephalosaurids as well.

In addition, Pachycephalosaurus is a very unusual plant-eater - it may've been one of the biggest omnivorous dinosaurs (rather like the modern wild pigs than the deer or the antelopes) of its time. Considering that most of the dinosaurs can be classified as herbivores or carnivores easily enough, the Pachy's omnivory can be considered to be quite unusual.

Finally, in this episode of P:NW, the dinosaur's 'role' was strongly influenced by the 'Jurassic Park' movies franchise. It rammed the car - just as it did in 'Lost World', (where it appeared on screen for the first time) and its sneeze that launched the real conflict of the episode easily reminds of the even bigger sneeze in the first 'Jurassic Park' movie.

Thus, 'Truth' had a lot of tense, personal drama & action, had important character development in several, if not all, primary characters, and a very interesting dinosaur for a cameo, but no sexual innuendo and little humor. Ah well, you cannot have everything.

PS: This week's P:NW video featurette has plenty of humor, if you want it after watching the ep.

P:NW 'Babes in the Woods' Dec 10

This episode introduced a new character: Natalie, one of Toby's friends from her modelling days. That's right, Toby the computer geek/girl genius used to be a burlesque model in her college days. She was, or is, also gay, a new character development, when compared to IP's previous shows.

When compared to Samantha, the deceased girlfriend of Mac, Natalie appears to be more intrigued by the time anomalies; where Sam, in "Fear of Flying", was okay in staying away from the big glowing time portal, Natalie was ready to touch the time anomaly and maybe even to go through. Considering that in the original show people that went through the time anomalies usually were the villains of the show, this does not promise anything good in regards to Natalie's moral character. (Of course, just like Sam, she may end up eaten by the next dinosaur, mammal-like reptile or some other creature that comes through the time anomaly, but still...)

Natalie is also one of the titular 'babes', and she is also quite eager to resume her relationship with Toby, at least at the end of the episode. Mac, who probably will end up Toby's boyfriend, doesn't mind, but I think that he has his own issues to worry about. In "Undone", as you remember, his own girlfriend got eaten by the Lycaenops (which is most definitely not a dinosaur, no more so than a monkey is), and he spent at least two-thirds of the next episode "Clean up..." getting over it; he was morose, taciturn, and clearly unhappy with the way Evan was handling the dinosaurs and co. Now, he is cracking jokes, is busy downloading model pics off the internet and is generally acting nonchalant. Just how much time has passed for him to get over Sam at last? Or is he going to another extreme of dealing with his loss - trying to overcompensate? Honestly, if the latter is the case, I'm not impressed with Mac's behavior at all - he should go and have therapy instead.

For Toby's part, she wasn't particularly happy with Mac's behavior either: meeting Natalie and the rest of the girls has clearly opened some old wounds and memories for her, her CP partner (they and Natalie got separated from the others in this episode) acted like a horny college student most of the time (when he didn't try to take on a brown bear with a taser), there was a sense of a love triangle in the air, and there were man-eating dinosaurs out and about. Oh, and Evan acted like a jerk, again.

Evan, for most of his part, is a good man and a good team leader, but occasionally he comes off too abrupt: he was so with Ange and Dylan in the beginning of "Angry Birds", and here with Toby. Yes, it's obviously good that Evan has no problems with Toby's modelling past, but did he have to be so direct and unemotional? "Yes, Toby, you were a model but we don't care. Now let's get going and deal with the time anomaly." Nice personal skills, Mr. Leader!

On the other hand, Evan appeared to have no problems in dealing with Ange: after the events in the last episode, she did decide to stay...and to actually see for herself, what was the excitement in catching dinosaurs and similar beasties. This, of course, put her into a confrontation path with Dylan, who sees herself as Evan's girl Friday in such outdoors outings and doesn't see what Ange is bringing along for such a ride? Plus Dylan's got the bigger taser of the two.

To make matters worse, Evan appears to be thinking about moving on from his wife's death - he left his wedding ring behind when they drove to this mission, and I doubt that he was worried about losing it in the great outdoors; he certainly didn't in "Sisiqutl". And since he had a history with Ange (well, a much longer history with Ange than with Dylan), I'm guessing that he's thinking about her first. He's thinking about Dylan too, he certainly helped her with the dislocated arm, but as a guy I doubt that he fully understands that he's setting himself up for a love triangle, and as Dylan's behavior indicates at the end of the ep, she doesn't really want to play Betty to Ange's Veronica (or Veronica to Ange's Betty? Who was the dominant girl in Archies?), so the next episode should be really awkward to her and Ange and Evan.

Ange, I should add, while she does hold her own against a dinosaur at the end, but somehow I doubt that she'll have the same enthusiasm for dinosaur hunting as Evan, Dylan or Ken Leeds have, so I am not quite sure if she'll go to the great outdoors next time, or any time soon. It is also interesting what Ken will think about the new shift in the relationship between Ange and Evan, especially since last time, on their not-a-date, he asked Ange if she wanted to be his instead. Sigh. The next episodes may have some manly posturings between Ken and Evan with Mac egging them on due to his new mindset (and he may be still angry with Evan).

Finally, the creatures from the episode. The dinosaurs were based on the Ornitholestes model from Walking with Dinosaurs (1999), just with a completely different coloration. It isn't fully established yet if they had feathers or protofeathers on their bodies, but they did lack nasal horns: the initial specimen that was used as a basis for the WWD model had broken nasal bones instead. Considering that over a decade had passed since the release of WWD, IP people could've gotten this straight and created hornless Ornitholestes instead. Of course, maybe it was some other dinosaur, Proceratosaurus, for example, but the model was certainly that of Ornitholestes from WWD.

And then there was the grizzly bear that Mac and the girls encountered in the woods. Got to admit that was a nice touch, but the bear wasn't CGI'd - it was image imposed. I don't have a problem with that, a fully grown grizzly can weigh 200 kg (males even more), be 2 m long, over 1 m tall in the shoulder and are armed with teeth and claws much bigger than those of a lion or a tiger - and it is not an animal that is easily trained to work with people either. Obviously the staff of P:NW had no intention of working with a live grizzly on the set... but did they have to superimpose its image so poorly. Last time I saw such a poor job was on a Disney show "Suite Life of Deck", but that was a children show, so it doesn't count.

So: interesting plot twists, an intriguing new character (if she doesn't get eaten by the next dinosaur that comes to Vancouver), amazing outdoor location, great acting (as always), and decent animals as well. A good episode, better than its predecessor too.

Primeval New World "Clean up on Aisle Three" Dec 3

Last night's episode, "Clean up..." was a very good episode, but it just wasn't up to the standards of the previous episodes. Regrettably, it is the fault of the dinosaurs, but we get more about it later.

The actors, for their part, did a good job of following the script, which made a nice transaction from "Undone". As I said before, deaths of Samantha and her partner created a rift in the CP team, and by now it hasn't fully healed yet. Mac, in particular, has attitude problems towards Evan and his "do not kill dinosaurs" rule, but he manages to come through at the end of this episode by not killing the dinosaur he set out to capture. Sadly, because the dinosaur was rather ridiculous and unrealistic, this action was rather undercut, and the broken door to the dressing room didn't help matters either. Mac's big moment was diminished.

On the other hand, Evan and Dylan continue to develop their relationship, which is much smoother than any seen on the original "Primeval". Sure, they are taking it slow (Dylan even had a part-time boyfriend before the beginning of this episode), but considering that in the original series many relationships just went nowhere, this is quite acceptable. This is only the first season, the good ship D/E will have many opportunities to sink or swim in the future.

As will the good ship A/K. If Mac appears to have somewhat recovered after the gorgonopsian episode in "Undone", and will remain on the CP team, Ange has had enough. She never particularly cared about the dinosaurs and mammal-like reptiles and so on, and she isn't submissive enough to go with Evan's flow, so she's leaving CP. Of course, after a talk with Dylan, Evan is trying to salvage his relationship with Ange, friendly and professional, with some Chinese take-out, but this is an IP show we're talking about, so Ange just may up and leave in the next episode and we'll never see her again, and the show will continue with someone named officer Allison Merryweather in the future without being diminished at all: the original "Primeval" had replaced characters throughout its entire course, and "Sinbad" (2012) had replaced its leading lady from Nala (Estella Daniels) to Tiger (Tuppence Middleton) without any detriment to her script.

Character-wise, of course, Ange is unlikely to quit the show, as her "not-a-relationship" with Ken Leeds demonstrates in this episode. It also reveals more insights into Ken's darker side: just like Evan, he had been in a leadership position where people have died, and we still don't know what he did with the juvenile terror bird from "Angry Birds".

And this brings us to the dinosaurs. Officially they're daemonosaurus, basal meat-eating dinosaurs from the late Triassic. In reality, with their chimpanzee-like intelligence, wolf-like social organization and piranha-like teeth, they're just as unrealistic as the beetles from "Fear of Flying". Yes, there were probably intelligent, social, meat-eating dinosaurs in the Mesozoic, but they lived in the Cretaceous, not in the Triassic. The Triassic dinosaur carnivores (like Coelophysis) probably weren't social, they were cannibals. Social hunters generally aren't cannibals; sure, they kill each other and their young, but they do not eat them, just make a point. Solitary carnivores, - i.e. weasels, ferrets, stoats, tigers - do. As a last resort in lean times, but they do, and so did the Triassic carnivorous dinosaurs. Thus, I doubt that they were social.

And I also doubt that they were particularly intelligent. Until the end of the Triassic, the scene was dominated by dicynodonts (Lystrosaurus, Placerias) and by basal archosaurs, called raisuchians (Postosuchus, Saurosuchus) that were big, but much smaller than such dinosaurs as Plateosaurus. Daemonosaurus simply didn't need to be smarter than an average squirrel: it would probably survive anyways.

So: good script, good acting, but completely unrealistic dinosaurs. I seriously hope that the future episodes of P:NW will avoid this mistake.

Primeval New World 'Undone' - Nov 26

Last night's episode of P:NW was very, very tragic, on an almost epic scale. This episode's chronologically-displaced creatures were Lycaenopses, the smaller cousins of the Gorgonops from the original series and WWM (2005). The Gorgonops was basically built like a tank, and as such it was powerful enough to fight anything, from a military truck to a future predator. The Lycaenops is a much smaller animal, roughly the size of a large dog, but here it behaved more like a cat, instigating ambushes from higher ground (tree- or rooftops) and then charging at its prey (i.e. people) with powerful, but short bursts of speed.

Scientifically, of course, this is all speculation; in reality Lycaenops was built more like a wolf than a leopard, and probably pursued its prey on the ground, rather than from the trees. As a matter of fact, that is reflected in Dylan's comments, when she compares that yet unidentified gorgonopsid to a coyote or a hyena, neither of which is an arboreal animal. Considering that this version of Lycaenops is arboreal, a hyena-based comparison is incorrect. But when it comes to prehistoric animals, Dylan often makes important-sounding, yet somehow incorrect statements, so it's all for the course.

And as far as we're nitpicking, what's with all the dinosaur statements? Lycaenops, Gorgonops and their relatives were actually mammal-like reptiles, close relatives to the direct ancestors of the mammals, cynodonts. Calling them "dinosaurs" is like calling monkeys parrots or vice versa - it's simply wrong.

That aside, however, "Undone" was a very good, but very tragic episode. Samantha, Mac's girlfriend that was introduced in the episode "Fear of Flying" made her appearance on screen once again, but this was for the last time (not counting the potential flashbacks): the Lycaenops killed her. Curiously, it didn't eat any of the people it killed, so it probably attacked in self-defense, finding itself (and its' mate) trapped in a strange time alongside strange creatures...

But Mac, and probably Dylan, have also killed the gorgonopsids in self-defense, for those creatures clearly weren't compatible with the 21st century Vancouver. Seriously. They have killed at least two people, and scared several more. As many dangerous or rogue (individual) animals they had to be put down, and so they were.

Leaving the CP team with a very bitter aftertaste in their mouths. Firstly, they failed to protect the people they planned to - the innocents, the passer-by. The CP people had tools and technology and by now also experience, but they still failed, and there's blood on their hands - blood of people, and blood of animals. Not a good thing!

Secondly, the CP team was split upon this issue: Mac and Dylan were ready to use lethal force on the Lycaenops, Evan (and probably Toby) were not. The fact that the Lycaenops died contrary to Evan's wishes has raised a question of Evan's capability as field leader and as a team leader too. And that question isn't raised just by Mac (and Dylan?), but by Evan himself: just like Tony Stark (hence the Chinese-related banter at the beginning of the ep), he does not take failure easily and failure so close to home? Doubly hard. And with the next episode only a week away, how will he manage to pull himself together by that time period?

Thirdly, Mac was clearly interested in his relationship with Sam(antha), and her loss took him. How will he deal with it? Will Toby be involved? Will this issue be resolved by the next week? I can't wait to find out!

Finally, who was that woman that Evan went to seek consolation from? It may be Ange, but I'm not sure. In either case, apparently the relationship between Evan and Dylan isn't that intimate yet - and with the new rift, it may be even longer in coming.

So: an interesting new depiction of an interesting new creature, some very tragic new developments for the CP team, and oh yes, Mac (Danny Rahim) appeared shirtless in the shower. Go P:NW!

Primeval New World 'Angry Birds' - Nov 19

In the last night's episode, the Cross Photonics team had to deal with several marijuana cultivators as well as with a small flock of Titanis (terror birds) that came through a time anomaly.

First, the good. The episode's script was very impressive, the plot alternated between comic and deadly serious almost within a blink of an eye. The marijuana cultivators alternated between comic relief and very real obstacles almost within the same scene - that took some acting skills; but then again, P:NW got good actors, if anything.

And CGI, of course. The Titanis were very life-like, especially the juvenile, and here is a sticky point: the terror birds have appeared in IP productions starting with WWB back in 2001. That said, they were usually acknowledged Phororhacos, yet ever since the original "Primeval" had aired, IP's fans argued about this species.

More specifically, IP never appeared to be particularly interested in the species identity of the terror birds, whether or not we're talking about "Primeval" or "Prehistoric Park" (2006) or etc. Terror birds were terror birds, and that was that. But now, in this episode, we've got Dylan channeling her inner Twilight Sparkle by declaring this bird to be Titanis - based on a fluffy juvenile, as well. Seriously, P:NW isn't a documentary show, after all, so why the bon mot of scientific trivia? (And the meat-eating pteranodon from the pilot ep was bad enough.) Sara Canning (Dylan) should really complain to the script writers about her lines: such scenes rather diminish her character.

Conversely, Dylan's interactions with Evan, with Angelika and the cultivators, other characters, really bring out her character: a strong, caring woman that is trying to rein in Evan's potentially self-destructive obsession with time anomalies and the creatures that come through it. After all, not even Batman could fully pull off being a CEO of Wayne Tech and a masked crime fighter at the same time, and Tony Stark (Iron Man) solved this by becoming affiliated with the US government (even if just through SHIELD), and so has Evan Cross...only with the Canadian government, in the person of Ken Leeds. Considering, that the last shots of the episode had the self-same RCAF man stowing away a Titanis juvenile (whether the same from earlier in the ep or another one - the model looked different) this has potential to backfire.

From Leeds to Angelika. Any ideas why the first shots of her in the ep were upon her legs? Yes, Miranda Frigon has very nice legs, but seriously, her character is a CFO of a flourishing company, why the legs? Is Frigon a leg model or something and angles for some professional PR, I wonder?

That said, Angelika's interaction with Evan in the beginning of the ep was something else: it really did brought out the point that Evan had a company to run and couldn't afford to be a vigilante superhero all the time. Already his involvement with the time anomalies are bringing changes to his company beyond his control, and as Leeds' decision to keep a Titanis indicates, this may bite him in the ass eventually.

Dylan, I should point out, actually agreed with Angelika on this one, so I also cannot help but feel that since Evan rode so roughshod over their mutual objections, at least some of that bad karma that may be coming his way is deserved.

And speaking of coming, the character of Toby (Crystal Lowe) has experienced some major development. Unlike Jess Parker from the original series, who'd been happy to simply work in the labs, Toby is more of a Connor Temple sort of character (what is he up to, anyways, since the pilot?) who can work in the field as well - to Mac's worry. In part, I suspect, that's because the show's producers are Toby/Mac shippers, though I seriously hope that Mac's interaction with his current girlfriend (Susannah or Susan) will be resolved before then: unlike Connor's first girlfriend, who turned out to be sort of evil, Susannah appears to be a rather decent person, a good shot with a tranquilizer gun too. Toby, on the other hand, actually shot one of the marijuana cultivators in the butt, but that was Mac's fault too: all guns tend to have a recoil, something Mac was aware, but Toby (who is a computer expert, not a firearms one) was probably not.

(Speaking of guns and targets, at least one of the terror birds had a minor case of invincibility - it was shot at with a gun and a taser and shrugged of both? IP's terror birds were often tough, but this is ridiculous: sabre-tooth cats like Smilodon very quickly cut them down to size, BTW.)

So. In this episode we had some good acting and CGI, and script, to a lesser extent. All of the characters had their personalities developed further, and there were giant killer ostriches as well. All in all - a good episode.

Primeval New World 'Fear of Flying' - Nov 12

Last night's episode of P:NW was great, though I still liked "Sisiutl" better, and here is why.

It all began with the "beetles". When it came to insects, "Primeval" had the following:

- S3 had the "megaopteran", a giant insect from the future that laid its offspring into other creatures like the modern parasitic wasps do, but had supposedly descended from the tiger beetle.

- S5, on the other hand, had a giant burrowing blind insect that ate people and a much smaller species that looked vaguely like the modern rowe beetle, whose queen was larger than an average member of the swarm, and who also ate people.

- Now we have a beetle that lays its eggs into other creatures like the "megaopteran" did, who is blind and lives partially underground, as the giant burrowing insect did, and who lives in swarms and has a bigger than the average member queen as that other future insect did. In other words, this beetle is a mixture of the previous three insects, all of which were from the future, and only one of which was recognized as a beetle, actually.

This is the reason why I have problems with the last night's animal: it is not from the past, whatever the official page says, it is from the future. The Jurassic no longer had high enough oxygen levels to allow insects to reach almost 2.5 m in length as the queen beetle did and so, well, you get it? P:NW may not be a documentary, of course, but it is still realistic and scientifically accurate enough to know that insects of this size belong in the future, not in the past (not counting the Carboniferous, but the beetles didn't exist back then, actually).

Frankly, I don't know why P:NW had to claim that those were Jurassic beetles, when they could've as easily been from the future and their role in being this episode's antagonist wouldn't have changed one bit.

After the beetles come the people, and I got to confess the actors really carried this episode through. The plot itself, I confess, appeared to have suffered from a too-large 'red herring' - the plane. Evan and Dylan spent almost the entire episode 'cannibalizing' it in order to make it fliable again and in the end had to give it up, as the last of the pilots died. Got to admit - the demise of Joe and Caitlynn (the pilots) had been two of the most heart-rendering moments in the episode: the original series tended to rescue people outside of the main cast (for the moment) that went through a time anomaly; P:NW apparently decided to change all that - and I got to admit that that had worked. Whatever else, "Fear of Flying" had been a very tense, dramatic episode and the actual defeat of the characters by the prehistoric vermin made it even more poignant. (And the fact that the time anomaly remained open at the episode's end does not promise anything good, either.)

Speaking of the characters and the cast, this episode also introduced Susan, Mac's new girlfriend and a fellow action junkie. Got to admit, I'm not sure what to think of her. On one hand, judging by the "Primeval" experience, any girlfriends & boyfriends from "aside" usually proved to be evil, but on the other hand that may not be the case here, and she appears to be as competent as Mac is when it comes to hunting chronologically displaced animals and insects. So, I'm holding my judgement on her until the later episodes.

So: insect chimeras that never existed (and couldn't exist), many dramatic and drastic turns and twists of the plot, a major relationship development between Evan and Dylan (Niall and Sara), and we get to see Toby (Crystal) in her bra and knickers at the beginning of the episode. This makes this episode a definite success, as far I as can tell.